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Eraserhead

  • 1977
  • Not Rated
  • 1h 29m
IMDb RATING
7.3/10
137K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
2,463
270
Jack Nance in Eraserhead (1977)
Watch Official Trailer
Play trailer0:47
2 Videos
96 Photos
Body HorrorDark ComedyMonster HorrorFantasyHorror

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newborn mutant child.Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newborn mutant child.Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newborn mutant child.

  • Director
    • David Lynch
  • Writer
    • David Lynch
  • Stars
    • Jack Nance
    • Charlotte Stewart
    • Allen Joseph
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.3/10
    137K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    2,463
    270
    • Director
      • David Lynch
    • Writer
      • David Lynch
    • Stars
      • Jack Nance
      • Charlotte Stewart
      • Allen Joseph
    • 768User reviews
    • 195Critic reviews
    • 87Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 3 wins & 2 nominations total

    Videos2

    Official Trailer
    Trailer 0:47
    Official Trailer
    Remembering David Lynch
    Clip 1:46
    Remembering David Lynch
    Remembering David Lynch
    Clip 1:46
    Remembering David Lynch

    Photos96

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    + 91
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    Top cast21

    Edit
    Jack Nance
    Jack Nance
    • Henry Spencer
    • (as John Nance)
    Charlotte Stewart
    Charlotte Stewart
    • Mary X
    Allen Joseph
    Allen Joseph
    • Mr. X
    Jeanne Bates
    Jeanne Bates
    • Mrs. X
    Judith Roberts
    Judith Roberts
    • Beautiful Girl Across the Hall
    • (as Judith Anna Roberts)
    Laurel Near
    Laurel Near
    • Lady in the Radiator
    V. Phipps-Wilson
    • Landlady (long version)
    Jack Fisk
    Jack Fisk
    • Man in the Planet
    Jean Lange
    • Grandmother
    Thomas Coulson
    • The Boy
    John Monez
    • Bum
    Darwin Joston
    Darwin Joston
    • Paul
    T. Max Graham
    • The Boss
    • (as Neil Moran)
    Hal Landon Jr.
    Hal Landon Jr.
    • Pencil Machine Operator
    Jennifer Lynch
    Jennifer Lynch
    • Little Girl
    Brad Keeler
    • Little Boy
    Peggy Reavey
    Peggy Reavey
    • Person Digging in the Alley (long version)
    • (as Peggy Lynch)
    Doddie Keeler
    • Person Digging in the Alley (long version)
    • Director
      • David Lynch
    • Writer
      • David Lynch
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews768

    7.3137.1K
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    Featured reviews

    hursto

    how weird can you get?

    I needed to read all the other reviews here before I was game to make a comment. I'm a great fan of Lynch's Wild at Heart having seen it four times, and recently loved Lost Highway. But this one left me baffled. I'd heard of it for years, but can make little sense of it. It certainly didn't bore me, in fact I was fascinated to see where the plot led. Tried to analyse it in terms of symbolism, but decided that if I have to do that the film isn't really speaking to me. The dark broodiness is impressive, the squishiness repulsive, and Henry's hairdo is unforgettable!
    choatelodge

    Not for every viewer

    A surprising number of reviewers here howl at length about how bored they were by this movie. No surprise. I doubt David Lynch intended to entertain the viewer of Eraserhead. He intended to invoke a response, to be sure, but amusement was not it. There is not a single word nor phrase I can use to convey the response this movie brought out in me. Fascinated depression, appalled sympathy, and an ever present feeling of gratitude that although I was present in this bleak, inhuman, industrial, possibly toxic world, it was just a dream and I would be away from it eventually, unlike Henry Nance.

    The events draw you along in morbid curiosity as Henry goes about his business, fate not being very kind to him at any particular point. The pacing is slow enough that one has time to muse on the meaning of what transpires while the dank grim surroundings press down on oneself as they do on Henry.

    Should be watched in the evening with darkened lights. It is a trip, if you are willing to take it.

    Those who are bored should not watch it. They should rent 'Rambo', or perhaps 'Smokey and the Bandit'.
    TeaBunny

    Amazing masterpiece of filmmaking!

    You have to dissect it, watch it more than once, eat, breathe it and live it before you can get it. There are lots of explanations for all of the things that "make no sense"... it's art in it's purest form - you take away from it what you want! You can see Henry struggling with suddenly being thrust into the role of father and husband, his sin, his temptation, his life, his death, his dreams... too much symbolism to even get into here... anyone who dismisses this film as "junk that makes no sense" will never get it, and that's OK. But for the rest of us, it's on our "Top Ten Films of All Time" list. Brilliant and beautiful and horrifying! Makes you think for weeks... YEARS. I love it. Highly recommended to those who are open-minded! AMAZING FILM!!
    9Coventry

    The twisted world of David Lynch

    I'm always a bit worried when I'm about to express my love towards this movie by the genius director David Lynch... I figure it's the perfect indicator for psychiatrists to claim that you're completely nuts :)

    But what the heck, they're a lot of nutballs on this website, so I can speak my mind freely. Indeed, I love this movie...although 'love' may be a wrong term to describe my feelings towards it. This movie 'fascinates' me is a much better saying. Usually, a movie is something in which you can live yourself in...in order to escape the stress of real life. Eraserhead is the exact opposite of that ! When watching this film, you can only hope that you'll never awake in the wold like Lynch shows it here. The horrible noises, the colorless and tasteless locations and the insensible characters...you all hate to love it. Eraserhead takes a walk with your emotions, you don't know whether to be disgusted or intrigued by it. So you'll feel uncomfortable when watching it and that's a wonderful experience for a cinema freak !

    Eraserhead is the ultimate cult film in my opinion and a must see for every fan of this delicious genre. In fact, I would go so far to say you can't call yourself a cult-freak if you haven't seen it yet.

    David Lynch begins his highly impressive career with this one and it still lives on. Eraserhead isn't his best film at all ( certainly not when it comes to storyline ) but it's his most deep and personal tale. 25 years old and still the "weirdest" film ever. That's an achievement, certainly with all this artistic filmmakers lately...or, at least, they try to be...)

    I want to encourage as much people as possible to see this one, but it's for the best that some groups of people avoid it. Surely not recommended if you're depressed or suicidal...The image of Jack Nance and the rest of the cast could even put you more down, I think. The tagline of this movie - "In heaven, everything looks fine" - could become a stimulus, I'm afraid. Pregnant women and young couples in love should beware as well !! This film is the ultimate nightmare for that what should be the greatest miracle of life...The hideous but yet harmless "baby" ( I really don't know how I should call it, actually )is the purest form of horror that ever occurred on the screen.

    You must have respect for director David Lynch. If you imagine how hard it must have been to create and finance this production. But it worked...hell, even comedy legend Mel Brooks was deeply impressed. Based on this film, he decided to let Lynch direct "The Elephant Man" a few years later. By that, David's career was launched and of course he made a masterpiece out of it. For me personally, his highlights were the 80's with terrific movies like "Blue Velvet", "Dune" ( very underrated, in my opinion) and "Wild at Heart" at the end of the decade. And let's not forget the best TV-series ever made: "Twin Peaks".

    Please, watch this movie !! Three times in a row if possible. I know a lot of people who just stopped watching it after half and hour ( or less ) and yelled "What the f*** is this ???". Real shame, if you ask me. It's an insight to a great mind and a unique event. If you really don't see the magic of it, at least try to admire the very stylish haircut of the main character. I'm thinking of doing the same thing with mine...
    9The_Movie_Cat

    Cinematic genius, but definitely NOT a date movie.

    I can think of very few films that have sound as their most commendable feature. The Exorcist is one, a film that, aside from infrequent strains of `Tubular Bells', adopts minimal incidental music. This is laudable in a horror genre where shocks are clearly signposted – and predicted – by overgenerous musical stings. The Exorcist may be flawed, but its avoidance of this field cliché is worthy of praise.

    Eraserhead is the other film that excels in sound. A frankly disturbing concoction of industrial score and white noise with undercurrents of musical hall and sonorous church organ, it is almost an extra character in the film, and easily it's most prominent factor.

    Yet Eraserhead is to be recommended for more than its incidentals. An impenetrable and gloomy work, what is it actually about? Who is the credited `man in the planet' who pulls levers that control giant spermatozoa? Many questions like this permeate a film which perhaps has to be seen several times to get over the initial shock of it's avant gardism. Lynch extracts the everyday and supplants it with the exceptionally bizarre. The experience of meeting a girlfriend's parents for the first time is never worse than here, where the parents in question gyrate spasmodically to the animated legs of a blood-spitting chicken. It's these scenes – along with the deformed mutant baby – that could lend the film the air of an abortion debate. Birth and repressed sexuality thrive throughout the film, from suckling puppies to the seductive appeal of the `beautiful girl across the hall' and a mother-in-law that gets too close for comfort. I guess the entire film could be a man's mental breakdown when faced with the premature responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood. Though to be honest I couldn't even begin to imagine what it's really all about.

    Encroaching blackness fills every scene, where lights are intermittent at best, and at worse fail completely. Often sets – particularly the bedroom when `Mary X' is feeding the child – are like prison cells. Two of the most eerie segments involve a title-explaining dream (?) where Henry's (Nance's) head is carved into pencil rubbers and an unsettling musical number from the `lady in the radiator'. This is the same lady with two candyfloss-like lumps on her cheeks that alternates her stage appearances between stamping on giant sperm to singing with religious convictions.

    Direction and cinematography are brilliant throughout, though the climax is the ultimate extension of a film that borders on darker, extremely unpleasant aspects of reality. I took a girl to see this film once, where the conclusion formed the final straw in what could be seen as a cycle of repellent imagery. I wonder why I never saw her again?

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      When production on the film took longer than expected, David Lynch had to sleep in the same room used as Henry's bedroom for over a year.
    • Goofs
      Henry takes off the wrong shoe/sock to dry off.
    • Quotes

      Lady in the Radiator: [singing] In Heaven, everything is fine. In Heaven, everything is fine. In Heaven, everything is fine. You've got your good things. And I've got mine. In Heaven, everything is fine. In Heaven, everything is fine. In Heaven, everything is fine. You've got your good things. And you've got mine. In Heaven, everything is fine.

    • Crazy credits
      There are no opening credits, just a long, tilted close-up of the face of Jack Nance.
    • Alternate versions
      First DVD edition was printed in open matte format (1:1.33)
    • Connections
      Edited into The History of the Hands (2016)
    • Soundtracks
      Lady in the Radiator Song
      Composed by Peter Ivers

      Lyrics by David Lynch (uncredited)

      Performed (Sung) by Peter Ivers and Fats Waller (as "Fats" Waller) (Pipe Organ)

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    FAQ22

    • How long is Eraserhead?Powered by Alexa
    • Who is the Man in the Planet?
    • What is David Lynch's interpretation of this film?
    • What are the "Glen or Glenda" references?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 3, 1978 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Cabeza de borrador
    • Filming locations
      • Center for Advanced Film Studies, American Film Institute - 2021 N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA
    • Production companies
      • American Film Institute (AFI)
      • Libra Films
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $100,000 (estimated)
    • Gross worldwide
      • $37,796
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 29 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Mono(original release)
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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